Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing a situation involving a foreign national who appears to be facing charges, criminal charges, for operating a business utilizing nominee structures down in Koh Samui. Now oftentimes I'll make some of these videos where I do like 'foreigners behaving badly'. I don't know in this scenario if this person was necessarily doing anything wrong because I don't know how their company was set up; I don't know what the underlying facts were in the given case. So unlike these situations where we'll do videos on something where there's CCTV footage of somebody physically assaulting somebody or something like this, I'm going to keep this out of the 'Foreigners Behaving Badly' category because this person may have been operating in good faith; there is an argument in there. 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent post on X from Pure Guava, that's @pureguava10300 and that's on X. It's under: British Woman Charged in Koh Samui Nominee Bar Case. Quoting directly: "Immigration Police on Koh Samui have filed criminal charges against a British woman accused of illegally operating a bar using Thai nominee shareholders, after investigators uncovered 17.3 million Baht (approximately $536,600) transferred into her personal accounts." Now where this may end up is in a tax problem for this person. The issue of whether or not whatever they were doing was illegal, the structure itself, might turn out to have been a legal entity but if you're siphoning off - and again I am not making any presumptions - but presuming one were to be siphoning off like half a million dollars’ worth in revenue over to one's personal account to sort of not have to go through corporate income tax and things of that nature, yeah, this may result in being a tax issue, less so than like a corporate structure situation or even a criminal matter; it could just be a tax matter, although Tax matters can become criminal too. That said, quoting further: "Surat Thani Immigration, working with Bo Phut Police, announced Tuesday they had moved to prosecute the 60-year-old woman, identified as Maxine, who allegedly continued operating a beer bar in Chaweng after authorities revoked the visa of her son, Ashton, and expelled him from Thailand." So it looks like her son was originally deported. Quoting further: "According to Pol. Col. Naruwat Phuttawiro, Chief of Surat Thani Immigration, the action follows nationwide directives targeting foreign nationals who use nominees to front businesses legally restricted to Thai citizens. Officials said such schemes undermine the economy and displace local workers. Investigators inspected Sin by Night Co., Ltd., a bar and restaurant in Chaweng on November 24."  You know, a piece of free advice here. I oftentimes will see where people will put some pretty outlandish names on corporate structures. Sometimes that's not the best idea, that's just a general piece of advice out there. That said, quoting further: "Although the corporate records listed two Thai women as majority shareholders at 25.5 percent each, authorities said the business was in practice controlled and financed by Maxine." Quoting further: "A financial review reportedly showed that between 2023 and March 2025, more than 11.7 million Baht ($362,900) of business revenue was transferred from the company's accounts to Maxine's personal Bangkok Bank account." 

Now again, just my own analysis of reading this fact pattern is this may not end up being a problem with corporate compliance, but I could definitely see with the kind of numbers they are talking about and where it is being at least presumably or one could infer from the facts that it is possible it's being diverted perhaps inappropriately. Look, if somebody is a Director on a Company, sometimes you do have to send that person's money to their personal account in order to undertake buying supplies for the business or something of that nature; there could be legitimate reasons. But that said, the larger the amount of money that's being diverted and also what percentage of it is of the business's registered capital and/or working capital and/or market capital will sort of start to colour the analysis over whether or not diverting that money is appropriate. But as I said, sort of circling back to what I said initially, at the end of the day, this may not be a problem on nominee grounds or anything, it may end up being a tax problem. That said, quoting further: "An additional 5.6 million baht ($173,700) in cash deposits from the company's Kasikorn Bank account was also routed into her account between November 2024 and March 2025." It sounds like it is a booming business; good for them. That said, quoting further: "The two-Thai nominees later told police they were bar employees receiving monthly salaries and had never invested personal funds. They said their names were used at Maxine's request so she could run the business. On Thursday, Naruwat and his team filed criminal complaints at Bo Phut Police Station against Maxine, the two Thai women, and Sin by Night Co." Quoting further: "They face charges under the Foreign Business Act for using nominees to operate a business restricted to Thai nationals, specifically the sale of food and beverages." And there it is notable; I like to give credit where credit is due. I found this via Pure Guava but they're actually citing Khao Sod English, khaosodenglish.com. We'll go ahead and put the headline from Khao Sod on screen for folks as well.

So that's basically what's going on; that seems to be the allegation if you will. Now what's the point for purposes of this video? Well look, at the end of the day, the underlying facts in the case, where the people involved were true nominees; they had no idea what's going on, they are not engaged in the day-to-day running of the business or the administration of the business; that can lead to real problems. Look at the end of the day, these 49/51 setups are what they are. And I think that there is a certain point where the authorities have to kind of recognise, they are what they are, but I'll leave the analysis on that particular topic to another video for another day. 

But the point in this video is they can be set up legally. You can have a setup that's truly representative of the realities and is in line with the legalities for what one may want to do with respect to a business here in Thailand. Now that being said, it's clear authorities here in Thailand are serious about cracking down on nominees. It also appears there may be a past history with the particular establishment as it notes on that X post because it looked like somebody involved with the business, I believe the son, had previously been deported, and now the mother was taking over and now she's got some problems. So there may be other underlying facts in the case; hard to tell. I expect those facts will be fleshed out as part of the adjudication process as this proceeds through due process through the Thai Court system. That being said, we'll certainly be keeping people updated on this channel as the situation evolves.